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User blog:TheRadBoy/Mi lernas Esperanto
As the title says, I'm learning Esperanto. Esperanto, for them of y'all who doesn't knows, is a constructed language invented by L. L. Zamenhof (a Polish Jew) in the 1870s. The goal was for it to be an international lingua franca, so people could communicate. This would be better then French (which was the main language that people of different countries communicated with at the time, now it's English), because it's not a national language and therefore it would be fair because everybody has to learn it. Why did it fail? Not because it was hard. In fact, it is extremely easy. Mainly because nobody really cared about learning another language. World peace and better understanding of each other? Ain'tnobodygottimeforthat! Another reason was because it is based on European languages, so it might not be so easy for Asians and Africans. So it failed? Why are you learning it? Well, it has 2 million speakers worldwide and a close community of Esperanto-fans. Okay, okay... not that impressive. 2 million is about the same number of people who speak Estonian and Swazi. I had two main reasons: 1) It helps you learn other languages. No, really. It helps you understand the concept of language. That's what many polyglots say and I trust them. I've been frustrated with French recently. Don't feel like I've made any progress in the past year or more. I hope Esperanto will help. 2) It's easy. REALLY EASY! I would be able to add another language to my list without nearly as much effort. Just how easy is it? Here are some facts. Studies have shown that you can learn it anywhere from 4-10 times faster than a 'real' language. After 5 days of learning (I started on Sunday), I'm at about the same level as I was after a few months of French. Some people have learned it fluently in a week of intensive study!!! My personal goal is to become fluent by Easter, so I have 7 weeks. Sounds crazy? Well, on my first day of learning, I could form a sentence as complicated as: "Mia nepino amus vidi mia novo hundon, sed ŝi ne veni." That means "My granddaughter would have loved to see my new dog, but she didn't visit". Kind of impressive? So what makes it easy? What letter a word ends with depends on its type. To make a word plural, add "j". No memorizing plurals like you have to in German or Polish. No irregular plurals that sometimes pop up in English (geese instead of gooses, children instead of childs). When something is the object, add an "n". Seems tricky? Hey, Esperanto isn't this easy after all! Actually, this allows for free word order. So it's a pretty good deal if you ask me. You see in English "The dog bit the cat" and "The cat bit the dog" are different. In Esperanto "La hundo mordi la katon" and "La katon mordi la hundo" are the same thing. Say the words as they come to you! Speaking of "la", that means "the". There are no genders, so no wondering about whether or not to say la/le (French), el/la (Spanish), der/die/das (German). No word for "a" either. Nouns always end in "o", e.g. "kuko" (cake), "teo" (tea), "domo" (house). Adjectives always end in "a", e.g. "bela" (pretty), "juna" (young). Vowels always end in "i" in the infinitive, e.g. "vidi" (to see), "esti" (to be), "trinki" (to drink). Speaking of which, vowels do not conjugate by person, do not have a way-too-large amount of tenses like some languages (*cough* English, Spanish, French *cough), and are not irregular at all. So "fari" means "to make". You wanna say "I make"? Replace the "i" with "as". "Mi faras." What about "You make"? "Vi faras." No change. That's just how it is for every pronoun. What if somebody made something already? "Mi faris. Vi faris. Li faris." Only one past tense, unlike some languages. What if they haven't made it yet? "Mi faros. Vi faros. Li faros." Only one future tense. What if they would make it, but they can't. "Mi farus. Vi farus. Li farus." Only one conditional tense. Make it! Faru! It's like this for every single verb in the language. Also, if you speak European languages (which all of us do, at least one - English), you're in luck! Almost all of Esperanto vocabulary is based on Germanic and Romance languages, I've also noticed a few Slavic based words. So it's hella easy! Learn these grammar rules on your first day and just memorize vocabulary till you become fluent. I recommend lernu.net. Bye! Category:Blog posts